Legal Commentary

What Went Wrong

By Big Tent Democrat

Krugman:

The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.

Could the stimulus have been made more effective? David Corn:

The "original sin of the Obama administration," says former labor secretary Robert Reich, "was to make the stimulus too small while giving out too much of it as tax breaks to businesses." [. . .] White House aides—and my colleague Kevin Drum—will say that Obama obtained the biggest stimulus he could, given GOP opposition. But the president need not have accommodated his foes so readily. "He could've demanded more, and settled for less," says a senior Senate Democratic strategist. That would have at least established a useful story line: For more recovery, we need to do more. Instead, Obama was left hailing a stimulus that didn't do enough.

And Obama got what he asked for:

[JOHN] HARWOOD: If it's correct that, as your aides have said, the danger is doing too little rather than doing too much [. . .] why stop at $775 billion? Why not go to the $1.2 trillion that some economists have recommended? Is that because you think that the political figure of a trillion dollars is too politically charged to get over? Is it because you think more spending would be pork rather than stimulus? Or do you think you've figured out exactly the right amount of stimulus that's needed?

Pres.-elect OBAMA: [. . .] We've seen ranges from 800 to 1.3 trillion and our attitude was that given the legislative process, if we start towards the low end of that, we'll see how it develops.

(Emphasis supplied.) The inadequacy of the stimulus falls upon the Obama Administration. The political debacle coming in November does as well. That's what went wrong.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).